The Four Types of Executive Teams

Leadership teams often fall into implicit patterns—ways of making decisions, allocating resources, and shaping culture—that feel natural, but may not be a conscious choice that best serve the needs of the organization. Some prioritize control, others coordination. Some optimize for autonomy, others for adaptability. Most are determined, or at least heavily influenced, by the CEO’s personal style.

Is your executive team’s culture the best one for delivering your organization’s goals? And if not, what needs to change?

The Four Archetypes of Executive Teams

Through our work with leadership teams across industries, we’ve observed four dominant models:

• The Brain. A centralized command center that sets strategy, processes inputs, and drives decisions from the top
• The Conductor. An operations-focused team ensuring coordination and cross-functional execution through structure, cadence, and accountability
• The Investor. A capital allocator, placing bets on teams and business units while allowing them autonomy to execute
• The Gardener. A systems thinker who cultivates an environment where teams self-organize, adapt, and innovate.

The Tradeoffs of Different Leadership Teams

Each of these models reflects a different leadership approach, and there’s no “wrong” type of team. But misalignment—between how your team operates and what the company actually needs, as well as between members of the leadership team—creates friction, slows execution, and leads to missed opportunities. The right approach depends on your strategy, structure, and challenges.

• The Brain is suited for organizations in need of clear, decisive leadership—e.g., companies navigating complex markets, high-stakes industries, or major transformations. But without the right systems in place, it can easily be disconnected from front-line realities and create decision making bottlenecks that slow down the organization’s ability to adapt.
• The Conductor is suited especially for large, complex organizations that need tight coordination—e.g., logistics, financial services, or businesses with highly interdependent functions. Yet, it can also lead to over-engineering and bureaucracy, making the organization slow and rigid as well.
• The Investor is suited for multi-business-unit companies, conglomerates, or those that operate like venture portfolios—e.g., firms looking to scale through M&A or innovation bets. Because it lacks an operational focus, however, it can lead to disjointed or fragmented organizations (and customer experiences), and foster misalignment between divisions.
• The Gardener is suited for fast-moving, adaptive organizations—e.g., tech companies, creative industries, or firms prioritizing innovation and employee empowerment. Yet it can possibly lead to a lack of direct accountability or inconsistent execution.

Making It Work: The Behaviors That Power Each Archetype

Recognizing your executive team’s dominant model is just the start. To make it effective, leaders must embody the right behaviors—not just in how they make decisions, but in how they interact, set priorities, and shape the broader organization.

• Brains are leaders who embody curiosity, pattern recognition, decisive thinking, long-term focus, clear communication, and an appetite for risk.
• Conductors are leaders who can think cross-functionally, work to unblock teams below them, embrace delegation, and can commit to the rituals and routines of continuous improvement.
• Investors are leaders who think in terms of bets, set expectations and hold teams accountable, are objective and rational, and only step in when absolutely necessary.
• Gardeners are leaders who prioritize coaching and development, create psychological safety, think in systems, define boundaries, and confront interpersonal conflicts head on.

What Happens When Leaders Try to Embody All Four Archetypes?

A common pitfall is that executive teams try to be all four models at once. But in practice:

• Trade-offs exist. Trying to do everything dilutes impact
• The organization experiences a dominant mode. Even if leaders believe they’re balanced, employees perceive a bias to a single archetype
• Role clarity matters. If the executive team lacks a clear model, middle management won’t know what’s expected

A more practical approach is recognizing both a Primary Mode (your default way of leading) and an Adaptive Mode (where you shift as needed). If your team claims to operate in all four models equally, ask:

“Are we actually great at all four—or just stretching ourselves too thin?”

For conglomerate business, yes, you can think about how you manage regions somewhat differently, but aligning on Primary and Adaptive Modes is still critical. After all, successful leadership isn’t about trying to be everything at once. It’s about clarity—knowing how your team operates, what your company needs, and when to adapt.

How Leaders Should Engage With This Model

This model isn’t just a framework for analyzing executive team dynamics—it’s a decision-making tool for shaping how you and your team lead. To apply it effectively:

Step 1: Diagnose Your Executive Team’s Current Model

Before making any changes, get clear on where your team is today. Ask: 

• Which model best describes how we actually operate today?
• Which model would best align with the challenges we face?
• Where is there tension between how we see our role and what the organization actually needs?

Tactical CEO Work:

• Ask each executive to describe the team’s current mode in a sentence to check for (mis)alignment.
• Conduct a pulse survey with your direct reports and middle managers. How would they describe the executive team’s leadership style?
• Review recent decisions. Are they consistent with one model, or are you unintentionally switching between them?

Step 2: Align Your Leadership Model With Your Business Strategy

Even if your current model has worked in the past, your company’s strategy, market conditions, or size may require a shift. Ask:

• Are we structured for how we’ve always worked, or for what’s needed now?
• Are we solving today’s challenges, or do we need to anticipate new ones?
• Are there tensions between our model and the way we expect middle management to operate?

Tactical CEO Work:

• Map out your company’s current strategic priorities and assess whether your leadership archetype reinforces or hinders them.
• Look at competitor leadership styles: are they outpacing you because they’ve adopted a different approach?
• Consider bringing in an outside perspective (board members, advisors, or consultants) to challenge assumptions about how your team leads.

Step 3: Identify the Leadership Behaviors That Need to Change

Your executive team’s behaviors drive the culture of the company, so if they aren’t aligned with your intended archetype, it will cascade through the entire organization. Ask: 

• What, if any, executive behaviors undermine our intended model?
• What new behaviors should we reinforce—and what old habits need to go?

Tactical CEO Work:

• In your next executive team offsite, list the top three behaviors reinforcing your leadership model, and three behaviors that might be undermining it.
• Give your executive team direct feedback on where their leadership style is helping or hurting.
• Set up a peer coaching system among your execs to reinforce shifts in behavior.

Step 4: Ensure Middle Management Reinforces the Model

Your executive model only works if middle management operates in sync with it. Otherwise, execution bottlenecks form, and strategy loses traction.

To ensure effective leadership throughout the organization, ask:

• Do our VP and director-level leaders understand how we expect them to lead?
• Are we unintentionally sending mixed signals about what leadership looks like in this company?
• What support, training, or adjustments would help middle managers align with our leadership model?

Tactical CEO Work:

• Have direct conversations with VPs and directors. How do they perceive the exec team’s leadership style? Does it create clarity or confusion?
• Adjust promotion and hiring criteria so that new middle managers fit the leadership model you want, not just the one that existed before.
• Roll out structured leadership training for middle management to reinforce the desired behaviors. 

Step 5: Recognize When to It’s Time to Change

Few organizations operate under a single leadership model forever. Business conditions, crises, and growth phases often require shifts between models. To make sure your team continues to evolve, ask:

• What external or internal conditions would require us to switch models?
• How do we signal and execute that shift effectively?

Tactical CEO Work:

• In board meetings and strategy discussions, actively assess whether your leadership model still fits the moment.
• In times of high uncertainty (crisis, market shifts, restructuring), be explicit about whether leadership needs to centralize or decentralize.
• Ensure there’s an adaptive mode that allows your executive team to shift when needed, without causing whiplash for the rest of the organization.

The Hardest Truth to Face?

Most leadership teams struggle with one of two blind spots:

1. Clinging to a past model that no longer fits.
2. Believing they are already operating effectively across all models.

A strong CEO pushes their team to confront reality:

• They lead in a way that truly supports the company’s needs
• They make clear trade-offs in how they operate 
• They make honest and accurate assessments about their own leadership

A leadership model isn’t just about how executives operate—it’s about designing a system that reinforces those behaviors at every level. The best CEOs don’t just lead their teams well. They build a leadership culture that scales.

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